The Three Conversations that Follow Feedback
Three conversations follow negative feedback; excuse, denial, and/or tell-me-more.
Excuse-conversations blame. Everyone who says, “It’s not my fault,” subtly or directly says, “I’m not responsible for my negative behavior, they are.”
Excuses are the reason:
- You feel good about you and bad toward others.
- Frustration continues.
- Growth stops.
- Efficiency and effectiveness plummet.
Explore excuses don’t answer them. Then ask, “Which of their behaviors justify your attitudes and actions?
Mary may say, “I stopped communicating with Bob because he twisted my words.” Address substantive issues quickly, directly, and with everyone’s best interests in mind.
Never bring up what you aren’t prepared to address.
Denial-conversations reject feedback. “Thanks for the feedback but you’re wrong. I don’t do that.” Address denial with gentle authority.
Rather than explore denial, simply explain detrimental behaviors and their consequences. Call for and illustrate new behaviors you expect to see. Say, “When this happens I’d like you to …” Deal with denial another day.
Tell-me-more-conversations explore and address behavior not motivation. “I didn’t mean to,” is assumed. Motivation only matters when negative behaviors are intentional.
“Why did you do that?” is like asking Billy why he hit his sister, when there’s no legitimate reason for hitting her, in the first place. First ask, “What did you do?” Or, “What were you trying to accomplish?”
Consequences apply to malicious behavior. Feedback applies to weaknesses, inconsistencies, neglect, ignorance, or lack of skill.
Wake up call: Neglect may be the reason negative feedback is necessary. Did you:
- Assign the “wrong” person. “Right” people have aptitudes and abilities appropriate to assignments.
- Fail to adequately define outcomes.
- Provide adequate resources.
- Neglect timelines.
- Disregard training.
Feedback goals include:
- Heightened fulfillment.
- Confidence to embrace new behaviors.
- Enhanced effectiveness.
- Increases efficiency.
- Career development.
- Meaningful relationships.
- ???
Bonus: Next steps are usually enough. Perfect solutions don’t exist.
What types of conversations typically follow your negative feedback sessions?
How do you use negative feedback to achieve positive results?
Good stuff, Dan, as usual. And on the important issue of slightly non-accepable levels of performance. Last year, I took the old descriptions of the difficulty of running whitewater rapids (Class I = easy, while Class 6 requires you to have your head examined first!). The idea is practice and preparation and it relates directly to:
Never bring up what you aren’t prepared to address.
If the descriptions of these different “classes” of coaching definitions are of interest, people can see the thoughts at http://performancemanagementcompanyblog.com/2011/08/05/coaching-and-the-parallels-to-running-whitewater-rapids/
Feedback is the anchor point of all performance — you cannot play the piano without hearing the notes in a timely way. As is gaining commitment and doing good followup to insure that the behavior coached had occurred and that the reinforcement can occur. Without feedback, forgettaboutit.
The other issue surrounding all this is the impact of that coaching reaction on the others in the workplace surroundings. If nothing is done, three things can happen:
1 – it self-corrects and self-resolves
2 – nothing changes; there is no impact
3 – it will spin down toward the bottom
My experiences say it is most likely 3 in most places. And the middle gets isolated and dis-engaged.
Got some thoughts on dis-un-engagement and motivating the middle of the worker curve here: http://performancemanagementcompanyblog.com/2012/11/26/engagamentation-engagement-plus-implementation/
Good thoughts. Hope other readers have the same positive reactions.
.
One other thought:
You said: “Assign the “wrong” person. “Right” people have aptitudes and abilities appropriate to assignments.”
I would be really careful of that one, since it is SO easy to keep going back to the same people over and over and over for those “special” assignments, which teaches some people precisely how to avoid any additional work as well as send messages about how the others are valued by the management.
Sure, it is a LOT easier to keep giving things to the same people, since you know things will get done. But they wind up doing more work for the same pay (which equals less pay per unit of work completed) and it actually can reward the slackers for slacking.
Those with poor self esteem about their competencies keep getting confirmation.
Like Bob Mager used to write, If you put a gun to their heads and they can do it, their performance is not a training issue but one of motivation. Coaching and feedback can have exceptionally good impacts.
“What were you trying to accomplish?” instead of “Why did you do that?”. A simple change in question asked totally changes the direction of the conversation. I will start using that. Thank you.
I always thought the three stories were mine, theirs and the truth.
People business tricky tricky stuff.
Things would be much simpler if everyone would just do what I think they should. That sounds so simple but what usually happens?
That is kind of paraphrasing from the AA Big Book, the greatest book ever written on human relations.( my opinion).
Your post Dan just reminds me how tough the business we are all in is a very tough one. What business is that? The people business.
Scott
Always employ the questioning technique as suggested – works a treat with kids and adults alike. What did you do? Is that OK?What were you trying to achieve? What were you supposed to be doing? Who was affected by these actions?…..What will you put in place to fix or remedy things and for the future? People can be their own best feedback mechanism with the right questions.
I liked the wake Up Call messages – often people “fail” because of lack of parameters or direction. Another good one Dan.
Thanks, Don. Concise and right on target!
Dear Dan,
Your blog touches on some key aspects about feedback. The main message that comes across is that while business and industry spends time on training people how to give feedback, very little attention is devoted to how to be a receptive receiver.
While givers need to be prepared prior to delivering feedback, receivers need to be skilled at how to sort out good quality feedback from poor quality feedback.
When receivers are knowledgeable and skilled at handling feedback or criticism, they operate with a renewed sense of empowerment.
I enjoyed reading your post!